Weddingbee Blog

Well, this is my 2nd marriage, so we are on our own as far as my parents are concerned. They are able and willing to contribute ’sweat equity’ and my dad had a connection that got us the church for $100, so it works out. As a couple, we sat down and decided what we thought we should/could spend and have been trying our hardest to stick to it! And his mom is paying for the rehearsal dinner, so that is a huge help!

I unfortunately have not been lucky in the money situation. My mother (my parents are seperated) was easy she told me before my FI and I officially got engaged that she would help, she picked up a few extra jobs and is contributing at the very least 1/3 of what we want to spend on the wedding. My FI’s parents are financially better off than my mother but they have helped us out so much through college by paying for Tom’s car, sending us money and buying $500 worth of stuff everytime they come to visit, we really don’t want to ask them to pay a third so currently they are going to pay the deposits however, I can’t get my FI to discuss money further with them so I don’t know beyond that. My father is the most difficult piece of the puzzle, he is extremely well off but equates love and money, and because his parents never helped him, he believes that I should learn on my own. My father is very tricky to deal with and were I to ask him straight out to contribute to my wedding he would say no and it would be the end, instead its better to let him to get used to things slowly and hope that he decides to contribute every now and then.

I really do not reccomend doing things the way I have, we have a deposit down on the reception site, a date set, and are in full the swing of wedding planning, but have no idea how much anyone is contributing or what we are selves are able to contribute (neither of our jobs are predictible enough). Unfortunately its the way things have happened, but I really reccomend finding out first how much you can afford and going from there. The only thing I really know is the maximum of what I want my wedding to cost, from there I’m still figuring things out.

Just a note before anyone things I’m absolutely nuts, I know that my mom is contributing 1/3 of the max I’m willing to spend and my FI and I should at the very least be able to match that, and if need be my FIs parents can too, so I’m not completely clueless about what money is available I just don’t know beyond a certain point, but I did make sure I had enough to get the bare minimum wedding requirements.

We don’t have a budget. I know that sounds weird, but with so many people (bees included!) talking about how they always managed to go over budget, even though they were “really careful” about everything, it just seemed like it would be something that didn’t really mean much in the end. I guess I can say our budget is a million dollars and then be happy that we spend nowhere near that, but it’s not realistic.

My mom is contributing to certain things (my dress and alterations, my sister’s bridesmaid dress, various little items for gifts) and FH’s parents are helping with some things (rehearsal dinner, letting us use their lakehouse for a party) but mostly it’s just the two of us. My dad, though I know he would love to help, has been out of work since before Christmas and even with his new part-time job, he’s still on unemployment. His contributions will have to come from non-monetary outlets, like building things or letting us borrow items. When, and if, he regains financial footing, he may try to contribute. I know it hurts him not to be able to pay for all of it, especially since my mom paid for all of my school.

The rest of it is up to FH and me. I’ve just started working part-time, too, even though I have a degree I can’t seem to find a real job. FH works for his father so he gets paid well. The rest is going on 0% APR credit cards and will be dealt with months after our wedding. Ideally, I will have a better paying job by then, and if not, we will use wedding gift money. To us, it’s worth it to throw a great party without having to cut back on the guest list. That’s the best “gift” we could ask for, to get all of our friends and families from all over the country together for a big party, and we’re willing to sacrifice for it.

We really didn’t have a budget, either, aside from what we very roughly guessed things might cost. We intended to pay for everything ourselves, getting a small loan if necessary and paying it back out of equity when we sell my house after the wedding.

My parents surprised us with a very generous gift and I think we will end up about $10K over our original (uneducated) guess, but that includes our honeymoon. His parents have not offered anything and I don’t know whether they will, which is not a problem since we never counted on anyone’s help.

I guess we’re pretty traditional. My sister was married nine years ago and there was no budget. My parents paid for the wedding and essentially took costs as they came. In other words, was this the best deal for the type of thing that he wanted to have? And eventually things added up and now he has a sense of what the wedding will cost (plue nine year’s interest).

My parents are paying for the ceremony and reception (including flowers, band, string quartet, alcohol, etc), invitations, my dress, my sister’s bridesmaid dress, the flowergirl and ringbearer outfits (my sister’s kids, their grandkids).

My fiance’s parents are paying for the rehearsal dinner and their own attire. They are also contributing to the at home reception in their backyard a couple weeks after the wedding (which is out of the country, where I’m from)

My fiance and I are paying for the officiant, out of town boxes, our honeymoon, the rings, and most of the at home reception.

Everyone is paying for their own airline tickets to the event (in Costa Rica, which is where I was born and raised).

That’s very nice that both your parents and his parents have offered to contribute. One of the things that irks me about my mother-in-law is how she claims on being such a feminist and that men and women should be treated the same, there should be no difference in raising children, how she doesn’t believe in anything old-fashioned, but then when we started planning a wedding, she turned up her nose and said “Thank goodness I have a son and I don’t have to help pay because it is tradition that the bride’s family pays.”
She later then offered to pay for our band, so we listed to a bunch of bands, asked for a figure, and she agreed to pay for the band that we wanted. A few days later, after we put down the deposit, she decided that she only wanted to pay $5,000 towards the band, and left us stuck paying for the rest, which we weren’t planning on. Now, I’m left with only $415 total to pay for my dress and all alterations!

Haha, thanks for the suggestion damis. Unfortunately, I already paid a $2500 non-refundable deposit for the band, so canceling is out of the question. We’re hoping that his mother will change her mind soon — it’s not like money is an issue, as her newest raise put her into the 6-figure salary, so obviously she can afford to spend more than $5000 on the wedding. I’m not trying to sound GREEDY here, but it’s tough on us financially when she offered us the full amount for the band, and then withdrew the offer after we put down the deposit. Money is a little tight for us, since I’m an oncology Ph.D. student and my fiance is finishing up his last year of medical school. Luckily, my parents have been VERY generous with helping us out, because there is no way we could afford to pull off a wedding on our own without taking out tons of loans!

K-
While that is a very nice idea in theory (to not get married until you can totally finance a wedding on your own), I don’t always think it is the most practical in the long run.
I am a biomedical Ph.D. student in oncology. While I am lucky enough to have no undergraduate debt and make a small stipend, after housing, bills, and groceries are paid for, I am able to bank about $300/month (I have a friend who only works at Starbucks 35 hours/week, and makes more than I do). My fiance is finishing up medical school, and will be graduating over $250K in debt between undergrad and medical school.
My Ph.D. program will be a minimum of 6 years, after which I will do an academic post-doctoral program, and will be lucky to make $42,000/year. My fiance will be a resident, so he’ll have an M.D., and he won’t me making much more, plus he’ll have all his loans to pay off.
By the time the loans were paid off and we could afford a wedding, we would probably be into our early 40s. Seeing as how we would like to have children, I don’t think that is remotely practical for us to wait until we can afford things on our own. I also don’t think it would be fair for us to have to sacrifice our desire for children just because we chose to pursue higher education. Had we both taken a job after college we could have saved up… but why be punished because we both wanted to enter the field of medicine?
My mother always told me that if you want until you can afford to have children, you’ve waited too long — and I think that is probably true in the instance of marriage in many cases.

Hi K,
I just wanted to mention that in many cases just because someone else may contribute to a wedding doesn’t necessarily mean that the Bride & Groom couldn’t have hosted the wedding themselves, it just may mean that they get to throw a bigger or better party than they could do on their own.
While I totally respect the idea of complete independence, I think we could all use a little help now and again so if someone would like to help give you a beautiful wedding day I say graciously accept the offer and have fun splurging on something that was beyond your means before the extra money was there!

here’s from an asian american’s point of view. in chinese culture, the groom’s side of the family pays for everything plus a dowry in the form of $$$. if groom’s can’ afford it, his family gets involved and helps. so all girls in my immediate/extended family went through that. well my FI’s sisters both are married to americans so i think the brides paid for everything. so imagine my FI’s face when he heard of this. btw, he’s chinese…just much more americanized than i am. yeah, he was pissed. so “he” decided he didn’t want to get his parents involved and that we would pay for it ourselves. so we came up with a budget by just estimating how much things might cost us (with the help of those mags. with budget tips) and where we were going to cut corners. so as far as i know, his parents assumes we’re handling it ourselves (true) and mine think he’s paying for it all.